To Protect Mustangs, BLM Imposes New Rules on Animal Sales

The BLM had previously been allowed only to offer the horses for adoption. Under that program, which the agency still runs, adopters pay a minimum of $125 and are required to hold on to the animals for a year. During that time, the horses are still considered government property, cannot be sold or slaughtered, and are monitored by BLM officials to ensure they are receiving adequate care. At the end of that year, the government hands over the animal's title to the adopter. Wild horse advocates said those rules prevent many from being slaughtered by making it difficult to profit from the program -- adopters, they said, probably spend more money caring for the horses, over the course of that year, than they could earn by selling them.

But a measure tucked into a massive congressional spending bill last year by Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) directed the bureau to sell, without all those rules and restrictions, excess horses that are at least 10 years old or are unsuccessfully offered for adoption three times. The government estimates that 8,400 horses and burros are now eligible for sale.

The law has outraged wild horse advocates, who say it was passed with little public input and will result in the slaughter of an animal regarded as iconic of the American West. They fear that the law, even with the BLM's new protections, will enable profiteers to make a quick buck by buying the horses cheaply -- the government's prices are negotiable, but the agency has sold some for $1 -- and selling them to slaughterhouses for $300 apiece. The slaughterhouses export horsemeat to Western Europe and Japan.

The law has been backed by many cattle ranchers, who say that their animals must compete with the horses for foliage. A spokesman for Burns said the law is intended to help cut government costs while spurring more horse lovers to adopt or buy the unwanted animals.

But the senator also appeared to back away from the law. His spokesman, Grant Toomey, said the lawmaker now thinks the legislation, which specifies that the horses "shall be made available for sale without limitation," does not necessarily require the BLM to sell them. "The senator did not intend this language to require the sale. He was trying to provide them [the BLM] with additional tools to bring these numbers [of horses in government facilities] down," Toomey said.

There are measures in Congress that would reinstate the ban on selling the animals, including one passed last week by the House that would bar such sales for one year.

So far, the agency has sold about 2,000 horses. It has delivered about 1,000, of which, officials said, 41 have been killed. The remainder have been sold but not delivered, while the BLM checks on the new owners. It also said it plans to review the status of the horses and burros that have been sold and delivered.

The BLM asks prospective buyers a number of questions designed to gauge their interest, intentions and capacity to care for the animals. The bureau has also interpreted the new law as giving it the discretion to refuse sale to those, Gorey said, "that we didn't think were on the up and up." Its original bill of sale for the animals stipulated that buyers "intend and desire" to treat them humanely.

The agency, in shoring up those protections, has since added language to the bill of sale specifying that the buyer "agrees not to knowingly sell or transfer ownership" to anyone "with an intention to resell, trade or give away the animal(s) for processing into commercial products." The document also now warns buyers they can be prosecuted for making false statements to the government.

"We think we've now closed the loopholes," Interior Secretary Gale Norton said after a recent meeting with Washington Post reporters and editors.

Some advocacy groups remain skeptical, though, that the changes will prove effective. Nancy Perry, vice president of government affairs at the Humane Society of the United States, said the agency's language would be difficult to enforce. "It sounds simple," she said. But "a judge has to determine what another person's intent is to make the buyer liable. [That's] very tenuous. Very difficult to get any prosecutor to go after a case like that. For BLM to prosecute would be difficult."

The BLM, meanwhile, is reaching out to the public to help find homes for the unwanted animals. It announced a second deal with Ford in which the car manufacturer will put up the money to transport as many as 2,000 additional horses to new owners. The automaker, the agency and a group called Take Pride in America have also created a "Save the Mustangs" fund to collect money from those who want to help -- but not necessarily own -- that will be used to help provide for the animals' long-term care.

"Our agency is committed to the well-being of wild horses and burros, both on and off the range," BLM Director Kathleen Burton Clarke said last week, announcing the initiative at a horse sanctuary in South Dakota. "With this support from Ford and Take Pride in America, the BLM will be able to carry out the will of Congress while finding good homes for wild horses and burros, which are a treasured symbol of the Western spirit and an icon of American freedom. "